I'm a very new user to gentoo(2 weeks old), and while I always heard that everything is compiled in Gentoo, I was very disappointed to find out that it isn't when I extracted the stage3 zip. I did hear that it did take a long time for the base system to compile, but isn't that what Gentoo is famous for? Isn't that optimization at its finest? Isn't that what this distro was built on? I do understand that it is still possible but isn't in the handbook for new users. But why did they remove the stage1 and stage2 installations?

Your poll is missing an option: "I create the same optimization I would have gotten with a Stage1 install through other means." That's the real reason that the Stage1 and Stage2 install methods were deleted: they were more complicated and added no ultimate value.

- John_________________I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 999 National Security Letters.

It's like this: Using a stage 3 you shortcut some of the early work, and get booted off your hard disk sooner.

Once that's set up (meaning you finished the handbook's basic install) you can re-sync and then recompile everything on your drive according to your configuration. You'll undoubtedly have some updates anyway since the stage tarballs aren't bleeding-edge current. So something will almost certainly need to be recompiled.

So you gain easy setup, and then when you're ready for a break you can tell it to recompile everything and walk away while it happens. Come back later, it's done.

I just reinstalled a first-generation i7 and my post-handbook recompile took about 45 minutes. I submit that it won't take more than a couple hours on anything that somebody might use as a workstation in a practical world.

Think about it. You intend to compile everything on this system anyway. You're not going to install Gentoo on junk, unless you're just bored stiff and want to see how it would go.

The initial installation sets up a tool chain just so you CAN compile everything. By the time you get done with the handbook, you've got a basic system that boots, not even any decent editors IMO. I think it makes sense to recompile here anyway, just to make sure everything is sane. The earliest sensible moment to do this is at the end of the handbook, and you want to do it at the earliest sensible moment.

Fire off the emerge right before you go to sleep, no matter what (sane) system you're on it will be done when you wake up.

If, on the other hand, you load your system up with KDE, firefox, libre, etc. and THEN try to recompile everything, you're almost certainly looking at "hours".

Likewise, if at some point you change your profile to "hardened" (or anything else) you have to do the same thing anyway.

bootstrapping your toolchain tended to leave some cruft lying around that is completely unnecessary, and like others said, emerge -e @world leaves you in the same state otherwise, only difference being that cruft that portage cant deal with._________________A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

The only advantage that a stage1 offered was being able to set your CHOST.

In the dim and distant past, where the provided options were CHOST=i386... and CHOST=i686.... it made a small difference to i486 and i586 class users.
i386 users were out of luck unless they also had a 387 coprocessor as the provided kernels had FPU Emulation off.

All that setting CHOST does is builds the toolchain to execute on the class of CPU you have - it makes no difference to the emitted code.
Today, this only affects a small number of users building on embedded systems that have CPUs that are almost but not quite i686 class.

1. gcc is built for C only using the compiler on the system. This need not be gcc
2. the gcc at 1 above is used to compile itself.
3. the gcc built at 2 is used to build all selected languages. This is what gets installed.

The rule of thumb for stable is 30 days with no new bugs but its a little more complex than that as a stable package must not depend on a testing package._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

1. gcc is built for C only using the compiler on the system. This need not be gcc
2. the gcc at 1 above is used to compile itself.
3. the gcc built at 2 is used to build all selected languages. This is what gets installed.

The rule of thumb for stable is 30 days with no new bugs but its a little more complex than that as a stable package must not depend on a testing package.

and its dependencies being stable and without bugs _________________the table is made from wood. forget what you learnt, the table is made from carbon. forget what you learnt, the table is made from protons. forget what you learnt, the table is made from quarks. forget what you learnt, the table is good for shagging on

Except it's almost never true. Or at least, not true enough to give significant bragging rights.

Certainly if you're building a system with minimal features and going for every bit of speed you can, then that system will be better than some mainstream packed-with-features distro like RHEL or Ubuntu. But not twice as fast, or even 1.5 times as fast.

The thing about Gentoo is that, if you absolutely can't stand xyz package you can prevent it from ever loading. You can add the apps and features you need, and disable everything else, including compiling support for unwanted things out of the kernel. If something is not there, then its flaws don't affect you.